What the research says about cholesterol and statins

ABC 1’s Catalyst program caused considerable interest after it questioned the importance of cholesterol as a health risk and attacked the use of statins. Dr Norman Swan says the show went too far, and for many people, disregarding medical advice on lowering cholesterol could kill them.

The recent two part series on cholesterol and the cholesterol lowering medications called statins on ABC 1’s Catalyst has caused considerable ire and confusion.

The first part questioned the importance of cholesterol as a risk factor and the second was pretty damning about statins.

Here’s hopefully some clarification for people wondering where the evidence actually lands.

The battleground is over what’s called primary prevention. People at risk who haven’t yet had their first heart attack or stroke. Do they merit a medication like a statin or would diet and exercise changes do?

Cholesterol is an important risk factor for heart attacks and strokes and the quality of evidence backing that up is strong. Most risk factors for disease come from two main sources of data: observing the health of large populations over many years, comparing factors in their lives and their environment to the diseases they develop and secondly, case-control studies where you take a group of people with, say lung cancer, and compare them to a large group of otherwise similar people who don’t have lung cancer and see what differences emerge—like smoking.

However, neither of these nails cause and effect, they just show associations of various strength. Cause and effect comes from randomised trials where the risk factor is removed and when that’s been done for cholesterol, using different medications, they show a reduction in heart attacks, strokes and death rates, as do trials of blood pressure lowering.

The relative importance of cholesterol is around the same as blood pressure and probably less than having diabetes or smoking. By itself, a slightly raised cholesterol level is not that much to worry about, but if it goes along with a raised blood pressure and other factors like age and family history, the risk multiplies.

This is all about risk because the benefits you’re going to get as an individual from treatment will be relatively greater the higher your chances of a heart attack or stroke.

There’s no debate that people at the highest risk are those with proven disease already, such as having had a heart attack or stroke, angina (chest pain on exertion), arterial disease, diabetes, or genetically high cholesterol levels (familial hypercholesterolaemia). There is no question that such people significantly benefit from multiple risk factor reduction including blood pressure and cholesterol.

The degree of reductions you can get from lifestyle changes are usually not enough, so medications like statins are needed to reduce your chances of dying or having a coronary event.

There is also a strong argument for active risk factor treatment for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders as well as some ethnic groups such as Indians.

Even when you’re high risk, cholesterol reduction is only part of the story, since other issues come into play, such as your genetic makeup.

The battleground is over what’s called primary prevention. People at risk who haven’t yet had their first heart attack or stroke. Do they merit a medication like a statin or would diet and exercise changes do?

The answer here is that it depends on your total risk of a heart attack when you take account of your personal factors. It’s called an Absolute Risk Score and while far from perfect, does give most people an idea of what might befall them.

The lower your absolute risk of a heart attack or stroke, the less likely you are to benefit from, say a statin. The higher the risk (usually the threshold is around three per cent per annum cumulative—meaning 15 per cent over five years) then the extrapolated evidence from clinical trials suggests it’s worth thinking about actively reducing your risk factors, especially cholesterol, since it’s easier to treat.

There’s debate about how much benefit women receive from this approach because they develop heart disease later and clinical trials of statins have often not gone on long enough to show the magnitude of effect. But absolute risk tools cope with that by adjusting for gender. Remember women are five times more likely to die of a heart attack than breast cancer and heart disease is their most common cause of death.

Statins do have side effects, including muscle pain feeling foggy after taking them. These side effects affect about 10 per cent of users. A rare side effect is muscle breakdown.

The rates of death from heart attacks and strokes have been declining by two to three per cent a year for the past 30 years or so and they keep on declining. The initial reason was smoking cessation but now that we’ve achieved very low smoking rates in Australia, other factors come into play and active cholesterol and blood pressure reduction are very likely to be important parts of the story, since we’re fatter, not eating much more healthily and not getting a lot more exercise.

So know your risk and talk to your doctor about what’s worth trying to lower it.

Comments (88)

Trev :

05 Nov 2013 7:46:32pm

Absolute rubbish. There is no evidence the death rate from heart disease is lowering. Statins are the gift that keeps giving to the drug companies at the expense of the Australian Government. Maybe doctors, if they want to be taken seriously, will stop receiving gifts of all types from the drug companies and thereby lose their reputation as paid agents of the drug companies.

Alex :

06 Nov 2013 10:11:53am

This article is in reality quite balanced, and a good portrayal of the risk-benefit relationship that factors into clinical decision making. In medicine, it is always difficult to determine one major risk factor (such as cholesterol) in patient populations who demonstrate many different, sometimes interacting risk factors. Generally, though, the studies agree that cholesterol is a factor in enough cases of heart disease to be a contributary factor. Certainly, when treated, rates of heart disease do decline. Like any medication, there will be risks that some patients will suffer as a consequence of treatment. However, if the risk of a serious cardiovascular event is high enough, that outweighs the risk of side effects (a heart attack can kill you, whereas most of the common side effects of statins will not) Unfortunately Trev, the days of doctors receiving large kickbacks or paid holidays from drug companies are over. It is a highly regulated relationship in the modern era, and the best we can hope for is a drug company dinner once every few months. Statins probably do make alot of money for drug companies, but that is probably because they work and are generally safe. Furthermore, as a doctor myself, the notion that we are puppets of drug companies is baseless and somewhat offensive. We are trained to be critical of studies/evidence placed in front of us, especially if it is drug company funded. We are capable of analysing information, combining that with our understanding of medicine and making our own decisions. The honest truth of it is that doctors generally have very little idea about which drug is manufactured by who ; we use medications that we feel work best (based on evidence), that we are familiar with and that we have access to. Not quite the same as "a paid agent of the drug companies" For anyone interested in evidence, a glance at the Cochrane Review in relation to statins would be a good place to start (Cochrane Collaboration are independent,NPO who do large scale analysis of medical evidence). Generally, they agree that statins work, and that they are safe. Worth looking at

Alex :

06 Nov 2013 10:20:29am

Just quickly.

1. To the people who are disputing the evidence, and who think that all the studies are funded by drug companies, have a look at the Cochrane Database (independent, NPO who analyse medical evidence) entry for statins. 2. For those who think doctors are drug company puppets : the days of getting large/lucrative kickbacks or paid holidays are over. The most we get is a dinner once in awhile to talk about a new drug. Doctors are trained to think critically, especially of research conducted by drug companies. Believe it or not, we can read through the lines and think for ourselves, and we certainly understand the vested interest that drug companies have in medical research. Having done that, we seek to do what we think is in our patients best interests, based on our own analysis of the evidence available. The Catalyst program failed to provide a balanced commentary, which has led to the eventual outcome of confusing everyone. Not sure if that is responsible journalism, or sensationalist TV

Michael :

06 Nov 2013 10:33:48am

All of a sudden Trev becomes an expert. Are you going to be one of these people who pay out on doctors all the time, and then run to them when you get unwell asking for help? So many spoilt Australians do this without conscience for the years of study and sacrifice doctors make so they can do their job well. Of course Trev, after blowing your trumpet for all these years, who will you blame if you have a heart attack or stroke? Probably to doctors for not stopping it before it happens. I see it all the time at work.

Dr Michael :

06 Nov 2013 8:11:26pm

To think that doctors get kickbacks is seriously flawed. This has been the biggest joke of all time. Tell me, which profession does not receive conferences, holidays, "gifts"..... absolutely very few. You forget that we require up-to-date information to provide a basis of informing our patients. So, to pick on doctors over the years, has seriously put a blight on how doctors do practise.

As a doctor, the argument portrayed here is seriously flawed. If you actually ask these "experts" on whether or not they would tell each patient of theirs to come off their medications, you will most likely find that they will not do so. The reason is that the real risk of heart attack or stroke is real enough that no doctor would be so blind to feel that it is justified.

Information like this, like other information on the web has created not an informed public, but a misinformed, entitled public.

Lee :

07 Nov 2013 8:51:00am

I think that people read about the doctors making money from drugs based on the American system, where for example, the doctors buy chemo and then onsell it to patients, at a profit. They get their money from selling interventions and drugs. However the medical system in Australia is different where doctors personally do not profit from prescribing drugs, but do profit in the private system from medical intervention, like unnecessary cesarians, stents and knee replacements, although I am not a doctor, I have worked in the area and do know that most 'information' about a drug treatment is sold to doctors by drug company reps. So unless a doctor knows how to read and understand a trial report, not just skim the results, they will be duped, as they were with the HRT panic ten years ago, when few of them understood relative risk. But there is no relationship between eating fat and dying from heart disease if you look at the evidence, just as many patients with low cholesterol can die from it as those with high. The contributing factors are quite broad as this article does explain, even viruses can cause heart disease. Statins reduce inflammation, which in itself reduces heart disease, but so does eating fruit and vegetables. Perhaps the question is not so much are statins 'bad', but what else can be done to achieve the same result that is natural. these things are not researched. No need for doctor bashing however.

Dr. Ghostly :

07 Nov 2013 5:25:09pm

As i read the comments and replies I am struck by the slip-slidy way very few are very rich in precision but seem to have strong voices - the voices of opinion. For example: alex says, "Certainly, when treated, rates of heart disease do decline. " The problem is the premise assumes a trial population that had not been washed through by the drug companies before the trials and the subsequent claims elevated the effect. There is still a great deal of persuasive evidence that managing saturated fats very vigourously, managing sugar and salt and steadfastly sticking to a regime of exercise and a Mediterranean diet will pretty much confer similar or better and longer lasting benefits, and I think that was the point of the Catalyst program. Life style changes are preferable to Statins. But you do have a choice - and yu may need one or the other depending on your circumstances and familial disposition and that means findng a well informed and sensible Doctor who can take a comprehensive patient history. it also means that the whiff of ethical sell out or drug company influence must be absolutely not there.

davoid :

Sub :

05 Nov 2013 8:04:44pm

This looks for all the world like the ABC backpedalling after one of their most tendentious programmes for years. Today tonight would be proud. They were in error presenting the fringe views on their programme. They claimed it should not be taken as medical advice. But human beings respond in human ways and many, many people will have ceased a medication they always felt was a burden to take daily.

Drew :

06 Nov 2013 12:20:01pm

Sub, I disagree. Your conspiracy theory suggests that the ABC took an editorial position on this issue and then did a backflip. The more plausible explanation is that, while the ABC hosts both the Catalyst program and Norman Swan's The Health Report, they have their own production and research teams and won't agree on every issue. I am happy to see healthy debate and diverse views on my ABC. (Though for the record I am with Dr Swan on this issue.)

Pavo :

05 Nov 2013 8:33:26pm

This is really confusing. We are being fed very mixed messages about cholesterol and heart disease. For instance, the Catalyst program claimed that people put on the Mediterranean diet were healthier from a cardio-vascular perspective, yet their cholesterol (LDL) levels were the same as before. Yet I've read reports that the Med diet DOES lower your LDL cholesterol. Which is true, and please, rather than just telling us (which is a bit patronising), show us the peer-reviewed study.

Also, Rosemary Stanton suggested that some of the US doctor in the Catalyst program were peddling powders and supplements, yet didn't give any more details. Does anyone out there know?

Lastly, I do believe the side effects of statins are glossed over and I have grave doubts about the company-funded research. On a personal note, my father was one of the unlucky few (few? Really?) who suffered severe muscle wastage on statins. I'm very iffy about these drugs and frankly would use them as a last, rather than first response. This story sounds suspiciously like the over-prescription of ADHD medication.

grump :

06 Nov 2013 12:49:36am

My wife was prescribed statins several times but each time she started on them the drug weakened her muscles to the point where she could no longer rise from a chair.The heart is also a muscle that can suffer this "side effect"!

Wendy :

Colmery :

06 Nov 2013 2:47:46am

I'm not a medical person but in the limited areas I do have a little expertise in I know that interpretation of evidence is always open to better interpretation.

Popular media tends to present certainty because it's part of the world views sought by the largest audience. However, certainty is not an attribute of our best thinkers. Indeed, hunches that grow into certainty are frequently responsible for catastrophes.

One of the best reads on this is the recently published "Presumed Guilty" by Bret Christian, about the WA Justice system. The trouble is that there is a media-politico complex that tends to skip over the tiresome need for factual evidence supporting cogent argument before certainty is possible.

So long as we have honest professionals who appreciate how difficult it is to be certain, we can reasonably trust them to ferret out the most likely treatment to be effective for what ails us. Those who present certainty from a hunch we should regard as liars and cheats.

We owe a lot to science and the way it gets treated in much of the media disgusts me.

Geoff :

06 Nov 2013 8:45:59am

The message about cholesterol and drugs has now become very confused. I am intolerant of statins. The only one which worked for me was banned. I now take Ezetrol (ezitimibe) which works differently and the Wikipedia article about the drug makes it quite clear that it is of very doubtful efficacy indeed, perhaps useless, and has some significant side effects. I am 65 years old. Why, if taking anti cholesterol drugs is useless over the age of 45 am I still prescribed them? (Yes I have diabetes and high BP.) But why is my frail 86 year old mother still taking statins? I am tired of the muscle aches and pains and concerned about my raised liver function. My cholesterol has fallen slightly after 2 years. But at 7.2 is it worth it? is there ANY benefit? I am very doubtful and have stopped. The waters are now very muddy indeed!

One body :

06 Nov 2013 9:01:19am

This drug can also be harmful to the liver. One of the blood tests required when taking a statin is LFT's to monitor this. I am equally concerned that you say in this article, diet and lifestyle have limited capacity to improve heart health in some groups. Apart from significant bodies of evidence to challenge this, for some health consumers this would be a licence to continue an unhealthy lifestyle and rely on medications to address health issues. I must say that in Western Australia a walk through the city would indicate smoking is still a significant health issue.

Orejano :

06 Nov 2013 9:47:09am

I agree 100% with your comment,I was under statins and they caused memory lost and muscular pain. Now I have to stop fenobrite (Lipidil)because affect my concentration.Fenobrites can cause renal failure and pancreatic attacks. I like to see an independent report about side effects by GP Doctors.

ScienceG :

06 Nov 2013 9:51:49am

Pavo,This article by a GP and Medical Lecturer certainly shed light on the background of a number of the "experts" from the first episode of Catalyst. Overall I found his opinion very informative and close to what I concluded.

First program was biased with non-experts who are financially invested in their low carb diet cures. The second program raised good questions over the over diagnosis of statins however was a little light on the most recent evidence (which is supportive of the their efficacy).

Richard Fleming :

06 Nov 2013 11:11:44am

Re the 'over-prescription' of ADHD medication.

Given that the medications really do help cope with the symptoms of ADHD and the proportion of people in society with diagnosed ADHD is a lot higher than the proportion medicated, we probably really have an under-prescription. That the issuing of such prescriptions has risen dramatically results from the combination of an increased rate of diagnosis and a greater willingness to treat with these most effective medications (and possibly their becoming more affordable due to public subsidy).

We are concerned with the dramatic increase in prescriptions for statins but this is no doubt largely caused by exactly the same factors as for ADHD medications (increased diagnosis rates, increased willingness to prescribe, increased affordability?).

The end of the world :

06 Nov 2013 11:44:58am

Give Wendy a prize.

The demonizing of all fat, when clearly there is good fat and bad fat. Good fat that is critical for children's brains to enable them to build a healthy brain to enable them to become healthy well balanced adults. Good fat is needed by adults to help their brains function correctly. And bad fat, like trans fat found in processed food and marg, is bad for brain development and bad for brain function.

Then you add the almost singular focus on the heart and the food that the heart needs to be healthy and the total ignorance of what food is required for the brain.

Then subtract the focus on mercury in fish and seafood.

Equals the true reason for the movement away from health fats like essential fatty acids and healthier saturated fat butter and towards processed fats like transfat in margarine 40 years ago.

For those that are now getting this, putting two and two together so to speak, the bad news is it doesn't end there. Because those that did this are happy for you discover that saturated fat is not the demon it has been made out to be. Why? Because their methods have shifted onto other ways to achieve their purpose, what ever that is.

crank :

05 Nov 2013 8:57:03pm

As the kerfuffle over Risperdal in the USA (it could never happen here comrades)and scores of similar scandals show, the medical-pharmaceutical complex does not like its business model (the usual one-profit maximisation before all else)hindered by mere externalities like patient welfare and 'medical ethics'. Catalyst set the cat amongst the pigeons and the reaction is nothing if not predictable.

Gary :

05 Nov 2013 9:06:35pm

The questions I have is this:

If the very foundation of the research used to conclude that cholesterol is a major contributor to heart disease is seriously flawed and manipulated; how can you confidently state cholesterol continues to be a major contributor to heart disease and how can the use of statins to artificially lower cholesterol be maintained as a valid treatment or preventative measure?

Jl Adelaide :

07 Nov 2013 4:50:07pm

Because they help some people just not many. I've heard figures of just 30%, given the side effects, and it seems plenty of people mention them, I don't know that I would take them.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2144195 This study stated that 70 lives may be saved for every 100,000 people on them, bit of a lottery!

Max nimmo :

05 Nov 2013 10:16:36pm

I understand from reading articles that the "Number to Treat" (NTT) for statins is 100. That means to save one life the drug must be taken by 100 people. If this is true then the risk of heart disease from high cholestrol is very small. Can someone verify this number.

Jack :

06 Nov 2013 9:39:02am

Association between cholestral level and the rate of haeat disease is at most emprical, based on a large sample of individuals. The fundation is statistical analysis. Emprical analysis is a usualful tool to understand a complex system, when we lack fundamental understanding of a system like human body. The danger, however, even adopting the best practice, is it does not simply tell the cause-effect story. In issue we discuss here, it is difficult to know if high cholestral is a cause or a sympton. Further, emprical findings are meaningful to statistical 'average' human. Individuals have significant differnces, which Doctors are often unable or unwilling to distinguish. A 7.1 Ch. level may be normal to Peter but not to Smith. No one knows. Because we don't know how different an individual is from the average human sample. We therefore have a risk of ignoring our individual differneces. BTW, I stopped taking the medicine to low down Ch. because it caused my stomach pain. The Doctor did not care much about the side effect, but kept saying the chance of having heart attach would be 4 times larger if having an higher ch. level. If I had followed through the Doctor's advice, pretty sure I would have my stomach problem before an 'icreased' likelyhood of heartattach.

Scott Howlett :

05 Nov 2013 10:27:26pm

When I started taking a statin following a slight heart attack and stent I started to develop muscle pains, particularly in my limbs. It became so bad at night that my sleep was continually interrupted. I was becoming less mobile and was often extremely fatigued. I had no idea that these physical problems had anything to do with the medication I was taking until I started to do some research on the internet. My doctor had not given me any information about possible side effects and there was no information provided with the medication. My chemist advised me to see my doctor again because he said I shouldn't be experiencing the symptoms I was having. When I saw my doctor he denied that my aches and pains had anything to do with the medication and just told me that I had to take the medication for the rest of my life. At that point I was on the highest possible dose of the medication. I became so frustrated I told him that I would rather have another heart attack than put up with the pain. He finally relented and prescribed me a dose that was so low that my cardiologist was not happy when I saw him a couple of months later. By then my symptoms had improved somewhat. I was amazed that when I started talking about this with family and friends how many people were taking statins and had been having similar physical problems, sometimes for years, but had never connected the two. I think that the 10% quoted in your report is much too low. I think that the bigger issue is that the medical profession, who did save my life by the way, is too locked in to the paradigm of the medication pathway as being the answer to healing without considering the whole person. After continuing health problems since the beginning of this year I finally went to see a naturopath in June. Since then I have lost weight, I am more physically active, my metabolic age has dropped from 63 to 50 (I'm actually 53) and I feel like my old self. Oh, and by the way, I've stopped taking the statin and my cholesterol level, while a little high, has not gone up. I will keep monitoring it though, just to ensure that this risk factor doesn't go up. Thanks.

JOHN :

05 Nov 2013 11:21:03pm

Would Dr Swan declare that he is independent of drug company support?.I thought the catalyst article was well presented.The essence of it was that statins are being over prescribed not that they should not be prescribed.Also that side effects were down played,interestingly the G.P. who was in support of mass use declared side effects such as muscle soreness,tiredness,confusion,memory loss were probably not really present just imagined.An interesting letter in regards to the catalyst program on the site related how an elderly gentlemen suddenly became confused and disorientated.His son found out that two week earlier his "well" meaning G.P. prescribed him Lipitor,this was preventative of course as his cholesterol levels were normal .He stopped the medication and his concentration improved and his disorientation disappeared.Perhaps statins are the cause of increasing rates of alzheimers? Heart disease is still the biggest killer in America and Australia.140 billion dollars of statins have been sold world wide,perhaps another approach is needed?

Ross J Smith (PhD) :

06 Nov 2013 12:45:04am

The situation is certainly confusing. And the contribution of Dr Norman Swan only adds to it. He makes statements without any references, general observations of dubious value and almost completely fails to answer specifics from the program. The program actually mentions studies to back up it's views. No specific comment from Dr Swan on these studies. The program also produced evidence that a major pro cholesterol study picked which countries to include and which to exclude, leaving the result meaningless. Again no comment from Dr Swan. And, finally, amongst a number of other points (there are many more I could make) the program points out that many studies financed by companies are of limited value as their criteria and original data are not available for analysis.

As someone who has done research, I can assure you that it is vital to not only have all the original data but also the criteria and assumptions being made. It appears that such data is unavailable for statins. Cause and effect can be extremely tricky and without all the data, almost impossible to prove.

At this stage, my view is that one shouldn't worry unless one's cholesterol suddenly increases significantly or one has heart trouble. Only then would I consider using statins.

Renée Piab :

06 Nov 2013 3:38:34pm

Ah! At last we get a reasoned post that truly addresses the actual content of these two very important 'Catalyst' programmes. I found them to be well-researched and well-balanced and hope they are precursors to programmes that further examine the causal role of sugar in many - if not most - of our health ills.

louise :

07 Nov 2013 6:52:36am

Thank you. I totally agree. The use of statins has become so intrenched and the backlash is driven by fearmongering ie your will die. But people are dying in greater and greater numbers from heart disease. I also have looked at the data and will have nothing to do with Statins. Their use will be and is a mjor contributor to health problems in the population.

crank :

07 Nov 2013 12:54:15pm

I generally think that Swan is one of the better ABC apparatchiki left, but you are correct, in my opinion. Most of the interesting parts of the Catalyst programs are left unaddressed, and we just have a jeremiad from 'the Authorities' against Thought Crime. Usually does much better.

gardengranny :

06 Nov 2013 7:16:57am

I think I may die from stress from worrying about all the conflicting articles on cholesterol! I work hard physically all day, my weight is good, blood pressure good, health good, no stress, have an excellent diet - much of which I grow myself - but was called in by my G.P. to let me know that I have high cholesterol! Looking harder at the figures I found that although my LDL is high, my HDL/LDL ratio is very good.

I agree with Pavo regarding side effects of statins, the mother of one of my friends had a serious fall after starting statins, and a work colleague who was fit, good body weight etc was put onto statins and over the next year lost his ability to do a days work, became severely depressed and eventually found out that he had lost 10% of his muscle mass.

I am forced to conclude that the secret to a long life is to get lots of exercise, avoid stress, eat well and stay away from doctors. Oh, and pat your dog a lot!

gbg55 :

06 Nov 2013 7:20:07am

The Gold Standard for evidence in medicine is the double blind placebo controlled trial, like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9158630. Many people, however, find anecdotal evidence very persuasive and this is why shows like the Catalyst program cause so much confusion and why "alternative" therapies are enjoying such popularity today.

Albert :

06 Nov 2013 1:06:10pm

I had a look at that report and it shows 80 less strokes for patients on statins in 20,438 patients. That is 1 less death in 250 people. But the study ignored side effects, and we know that 10% of those on statins suffer debilitating side effects.There is no benefit in having 1 in 250 people survive longer if for 25 of 250 their life is not worth living.

AbstractBACKGROUND: A reduction in dietary saturated fat has generally been thought to improve cardiovascular health.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this meta-analysis was to summarize the evidence related to the association of dietary saturated fat with risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and cardiovascular disease (CVD; CHD inclusive of stroke) in prospective epidemiologic studies.

DESIGN: Twenty-one studies identified by searching MEDLINE and EMBASE databases and secondary referencing qualified for inclusion in this study. A random-effects model was used to derive composite relative risk estimates for CHD, stroke, and CVD.

CONCLUSIONS: A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD. More data are needed to elucidate whether CVD risks are likely to be influenced by the specific nutrients used to replace saturated fat.

crank :

07 Nov 2013 1:00:30pm

Not wishing to be cynical or anything, but the medical-industrial complex and Big Pharma in particular (the most profitable industry there is)are not just indifferent to side-effects, (and those of statins have been notorious for years)but positively welcome them as a new 'business opportunity' for flogging some other drug to treat the side-effects. More and more people in the over-medicalised West are on several medications, with little thought given to the synergistic effects from their inter-actions, let alone to the different consequences in different individuals, given varying genetic, epigenetic and social influences.

JJ :

06 Nov 2013 7:52:25am

I thought that the Catalyst program was long overdue and well done. We now have a more balanced view of the whole statin marketing machine. The doctors interviewed in the USA are highly regarded (wasn't one a Professor of Cardiology at UCSF?- hardly quacks peddling potions..) They had some very compelling facts.

The most important and telling aspect to this lay person was that the pharma companies have not opened up their own research for scrutiny.

Mike :

06 Nov 2013 8:46:34am

Well, Dr Swan's comments really take us no further forward and don't address two important issues in the Catalyst programmes. Firstly the role of saturated fats in CHD - the fact that the countries in Europe with the highest per capita consumption of saturated fats (France, Switzerland, Netherlands) have the lowest incidence of CHD and stroke, then the recent recommendation by the Swedish Government for its citizens to adopt a high saturated fat / low carbohydrate diet.

With regard to the Statins programme, Dr Swan (who is not a cardiologist but of course highly regarded in another discipline) mentions tests and trials but again fails to address the claims that they are skewed and almost invariably run by the companies who are selling the products, including some companies that have been fined heavily for misleading claims.

However he really does hit the nail on the head when he mentions obesity, lack of exercise and poor diet. None of which describe the French, incidentally. I'd suggest that before mass medicating the populace, these are areas to be tackled seriously, and not by clearly biased commercial operatations such as the Heart Foundation. Lets start with sugar - you know that stuff the HF has sold its tick to.

Alison :

06 Nov 2013 8:58:15am

The author hasn't addressed the most pressing issue for most people watching the program, which is not medication, but diet. Daily decisions about which fats to include and which to avoid are the battle ground most people face, and the Heart Foundation are still emphatic about excluding saturated fats in order to prevent heart disease. Yet the program gave pretty compelling evidence that this link has failed to withstand the scrutiny of the scientific community. Instead, the so called "healthy" oils are a possible cause of heart-damaging inflammation.

G.John Linden :

06 Nov 2013 9:11:39am

Norman I watched the Catalyst program and listened to you. I was prescribed Lipitor after an A/F episode. I protested to the cardiologist that my cholesterol was at 4. He shouted back it was till too high! I then developed a lameness in the left leg as well a zombie like condition. A manipulative therapist that I consulted about the leg could find nothing wrong. I contacted the cardiologist about this on two occasions, but he never returned my calls. I then changed specialists who took me off most of the drugs. When I stopped taking Lipitor the leg recovered and the mental fog disappeared. My brother has the same reaction to the drug. My GP has assured me that my 'bad' cholesterol is very low. My level of 4 has never changed. Do doctors want 'informed 'patients' or do they want someone to treat them like 'god'.Re. randomised trials another doctor I was a patient of had a research arm to his practice. I changed again because I felt the research side came before his patients and there was a conflict of interest Getting people to participate in trials in Australia is not easy. There is a lot of publicity about trials in India. John

Anne Cooper :

06 Nov 2013 9:29:34am

Of course deaths from heart disease have dropped where stains are prescribed; its the west where we have fluoridation, general good health and public health programmes that affect the bulk of the populace. If this is true then GP's and doctors - who are NOT scientists, but are vocationally trained practitioners - have been party to a massive fraud, where they themselves have been misled. Its as scandal and very embarrassing for the medical profession who have been unwitting protagonists. No wonder they are up in arms. But don't blame the messenger!

crank :

06 Nov 2013 11:04:33am

Well said, Anne. Not of ex-E7North lineage Anne Cooper, are you? The statin scandal rolls on and on. Like all BigPharma scandals it involves dodgy research, BigPharma largesse, the denial of side-effects and all the familiar stigmata of profit-maximising at all costs capitalism in operation.

brian :

06 Nov 2013 11:14:42am

Doctors find it far easier to drop someones cholesterol numbers with a little tablet daily ,pat them on the back , both patient & Gp are happy .Far harder to mention that they are obese ,not exercising , soft drink ridden terrible diet smoking and upset the client.

Snowy :

06 Nov 2013 10:04:57am

I have been on statins for about 2.5 years. Blood tests showed that I had moderately high cholesterol. I’ve never smoked, I don’t drink much and my blood pressure is pretty damn good. I’m now in my mid-fifties and I don’t have heart disease.

I came off statins accidently and prior to the Catalyst program. I had been a bit slack in getting my prescription filled following my last blood test (I was about 12 days late). In the week (or so) off statins I became really and suddenly well – it’s difficult to describe.

For the last couple of years on statins I have been extraordinarily tired and lethargic. I was suffering borderline depression, and had developed a low libido and experienced other issues in that department. I’ve had long term nasal congestion and an unexplained pain in my shoulder joint that never seemed to go away. Nothing drastic, just numerous small miseries. In the last year I have had two Basal Cell Carcinomas removed and suffer an annoying tinnitus in my left ear. I previously believed that these ailments were simply a result of growing older.

In just over a week I experienced a massive turnaround. I have energy to burn, my libido is back and running beautifully and my shoulder pain is almost gone. The nasal congestion is a memory (I actually saw a specialist about this one earlier in the year and after all sorts of testing and x-rays no reason for it could be found). The tinnitus remains, but I live in hope.

I independently realised that statins were almost certainly poisoning my system, the results from not taking them were just too dramatic. Then I saw the Catalyst program and that simply explained a likely reason why I was feeling better. I would be far happier with the show’s detractors if they were able to refute the program’s claims and not just harp on about how “people may die”. The days when doctors could pat patients on the hand and claim superior knowledge are over. Nowadays we want to know a lot more, and in specific detail. Especially if a drug is going to be prescribed for life to a healthy person. Health professionals please cut the emotional grunge, give us the data!

Bruce Tabor :

08 Nov 2013 7:40:42pm

Hi Snowy, below you've asked some very good questions and I hope others - including the Health Report - try and answer you. here's my attempt at some answers.

"As I said earlier, Catalyst raised more than a dozen questions based on published studies – you know, real science. ... Questions for example: is it true that the evidence to suggest that there is no absolute causal link between high cholesterol and cardiac failure? Correlation does not equal causation." One problem is that you can't experiment on humans. However, that said there is a huge amount of evidence pointing to this link - see this series of articles which summarise the evidence, for which I'm grateful to Bill Shrapnel at http://scepticalnutritionist.com.au:http://www.jlr.org/content/45/9/1583.longhttp://www.jlr.org/content/46/2/179.longhttp://www.jlr.org/content/46/10/2037.longhttp://www.jlr.org/content/47/1/1.longhttp://www.jlr.org/content/47/7/1339.long

"Do people with low cholesterol drop dead from heart disease at, pretty much, an equal rate as that of high cholesterol?"No - after controlling for other risk factors, people with higher cholesterol (esp total to HDL ratio) die from ischaemic heart disease (IHD) at higher rates - at older ages markely so:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18061058?dopt=Abstract(Can't get a full free copy of this - sorry.)

"Will taking statin medication forever increase my overall longevity?"For people with high existing CVD risk there are clear gains in average longevity. You need to make a decision with your doctor about your case. There may be alternative medications.

"Why aren’t statin studies completely open and publically available."Here is a meta-analysis (pooled analysis) of statins for the primary prevention of heart disease:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004816.pub5/abstract;jsessionid=F147250C354013EBD5BA7D76FA5D8FEA.f04t02

"Why are the studies filtered and controlled by the statin companies alone." In general they aren't. Large trials are usually at arms length from the sponsor and are published in peer reviewed medical journals, which unfortunately are not very accessible to the public.

"Do statin test subjects have a built in bias against side-effects? If so, does this explain the nasty side-effects popping up in the general population?"I don't have answers for these questions yet.

Carl :

06 Nov 2013 10:05:33am

I've had 2 relatives die within 3 months of starting to take statins. A senior Doctor who my family spoke to said that death by statins is a known issue which the FDA in the US is apparently looking at and is of great concern.

Boo Brown :

06 Nov 2013 10:19:08am

And what of the program's assertion that Inflammatory disease (the fire), rather than cholesterol (the fire fighters) is the issue here? I would like to see more science on this. It would much have broader implications than heart disease alone.

Clancy :

06 Nov 2013 11:43:51am

One of the difficulties is that research is based on evidence about what happens on average to groups of people, but generalising from a population to an individual is difficult. For example, I know a 'fair' coin will over time come up heads half the time and tails half the time. I can demonstrate this with a particular coin, but each time I toss it I can't accurately predict whether it will come up heads or tails.

The problem is people vary from each other on a whole range of things, including how we respond to a particular drug. So even if a drug is clearly shown to reduce population risk of something, there is no way of knowing if it will reduce my actual risk - the only way I can tell if it will work for me is to try it and see. Similarly, even if the population risk of side effects is low, there is no way of knowing whether or not I will be one of the unlucky ones until we try it and see.It makes perfect sense to me that if I have high risk factors for heart disease and my efforts to reduce them aren't working, it is worth trying statins to see if they will help me and if I find the benefits greater than the side effects. For people who have low risk factors I am much less sure there is benefit. We don't know enough yet to predict with absolute certainty who will benefit from statisn, so at the moment it 's a probalistic rather than a mechanistic relatinship.

It is worth remembering that nothing comes without a risk and there are nearly always side effects. Driving gets me around quicker and is less tiring, but increases my risk of being injured or killed in an accident and costs me more than taking the bus would, but I am willing to bear those risks and side effects because to me the perceived benefit outweighs them. Other people may make a different decision. As far as I can see, it is pretty much the same with statins.

Peter59 :

06 Nov 2013 12:41:09pm

"The degree of reductions you can get from lifestyle changes are usually not enough, so medications like statins are needed",

This comment is at the heart of the issue being highlighted, due to most peoples lack of knowledge of or desire/will to change and understand what can actually be achieved through lifestyle changes they look to drug companies for immediate solutions which in fact are being questioned as actual solutions.

Many doctors still do not recognise how diet can have very positive impacts on the body and how rapidly this can happen.

The BBC has recently made a number of documentary programs regarding eating habits which clearly show how quickly the body responds to dietary changes and moderate activity.

Our Dietary changes are the primary cause of most conditions which have now become chronic, an example would be aboriginal health issues. Aborigines who eat well like most people generally do not have health issues. Like the initial statement my comment has no research statistical backup however it would be a very good research area.

The real issue is not the Catalyst program which I thought was very good and thought provoking but peoples desire for an easy solution which requires them to change nothing, go to no effort to modify habits or lifestyle rather than taking control of their life, diet and health.

There will always be a few people who have genetic issues but this number is very very small and not reflected in the millions of people who are on medication.

Cut 90% of your sugar and wheat consumption and watch the miracle transformation which will follow. This can be easily done by only buying unpackaged ingredients such as meat (read meat, poultry, fish etc), vegetables (green leafy, sweet potato not white potato, corn, mushrooms asparagus etc) and fruit (oranges, apples, banana, pineapple, mango etc). this diet is called a balance diet and is guaranteed to cure most ailments associated with excess weight. Cut out all packaged processed food and drink, your weight will drop your cholesterol will come down. Plus drink lots of water.

Clancy :

06 Nov 2013 12:54:31pm

And a bit of walking or some other exercise you enjoy every day - at least half an hour if you can manage it but it can be broken up into chunks. Build exercise into your daily life and stop eating crappy food and stay away from soft drink, fruit juice and more than a smidgeon of alcohol - works wonders.

Slip slop gulp :

06 Nov 2013 1:21:45pm

" The degree of reductions you can get from lifestyle changes are usually not enough, so medications like statins are needed to reduce your chances of dying or having a coronary event " .. this para should be hooked to the preceding paragraph ..to assert with less alarm , be more credibly focused and more a catalyst to curb perhaps the not so benign industry of sideline industry behavioural excesses .

Peter R :

Snowy :

06 Nov 2013 3:17:30pm

All very interesting, but this is yet another case of playing the man and not the ball. The Catalyst Program is not the first to examine the role of statins or cholesterol or big phama’s dodgy practices. Nor is it the first to highlight modern medicine’s capture and capitulation to drug companies.

As I said earlier, Catalyst raised more than a dozen questions based on published studies – you know, real science. When are we going to see those questions refuted or denied? All we get are the which-hunting of the folk who raised the questions. Questions for example: is it true that the evidence to suggest that there is no absolute causal link between high cholesterol and cardiac failure? Correlation does not equal causation. Do people with low cholesterol drop dead from heart disease at, pretty much, an equal rate as that of high cholesterol? Will taking statin medication forever increase my overall longevity? If high cholesterol is a gummy plague-causing agent in the blood stream, why isn’t each and every artery and vein in the human body similarly effected (instead of the arteries under high impact)? Why aren’t statin studies completely open and publically available. Why are the studies filtered and controlled by the statin companies alone. Do statin test subjects have a built in bias against side-effects? If so, does this explain the nasty side-effects popping up in the general population?

I wish the anti-Catalyst crowd would actually address the questions as raised and not fudge behind side issues. I care not if the person raising the questions is a banana farmer or a motor mechanic. Let the detractors comment and go on record with their own data. Data that can be challenged as is the usual way in scientific matters. All Catalyst really did was raise questions and one would think that it would be pretty easy to address them. Easy, one would think, given the scientific expertise, the world-wide scope of the drugs in question, and the annual 32 billion in profit generated from them. If the studies are flawed then all the resulting data is in a right old mess and we are stuffing about with human chemistry like a drunk in a china shop.

I think, perhaps, that the reason that they don’t answer the direct questions is that it might make for an awkward conversation and the tearing down of artfully glued assumptions.

BTaylor :

06 Nov 2013 3:37:02pm

Please comment on academic and scientific deficiencies of:

Professor Rita Redberg a cardiologist and researcher into heart disease http://www.ucsfhealth.org/rita.redbergDr John Abramson Harvard Medial School http://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/87715Beatrice Alexandra Golomb, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine, and of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California. http://divprevmed.ucsd.edu/faculty.html

And all the members of the nnt group:Jarone Lee, MD, MPH is currently a Critical Care Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, after serving as an Emergency Physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City.Koustav Mukherjee, MD is currently an Emergency Physician at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in New York City.David Newman, MD is an Emergency Physician and Director of Clinical Research at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.Joshua Quaas, MD is an Emergency Physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, and Director of Trauma Services for the Emergency DepartmentDaniel Runde, MD is a Chief Emergency Medicine Resident at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center

Ashley Shreves is an Emergency Physician who trained at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center

Graham Walker, MD is a Simulation Medicine Fellow and Junior Faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Peter R :

07 Nov 2013 5:36:48pm

Snowy: I do take your point about playing the ball and not the man, but I found the background of the 'experts' trotted out by Dr. Demasi on Catalyst to be very relevant given it shows such a clear conflict of interest and lack of scientific rigor on their part.

If there are less compromised people specialising in this field (who probably would not reasonably include emergency doctors, one would think) who have credible research to cite, why did Catalyst not feature them instead?

GeoffR :

inigo :

06 Nov 2013 10:28:56pm

That last point is crucial. Sure Catalyst has to answer the question - why did you quote 2 so-called experts without checking or declaring their vested interest or dubious qualifications whe they had a line up of thoroughly trustworthy experts from Harvard, U of California, Stanford etc?

And the critics (Norman Swan et al) have to disprove the science quoted - not just make accusations and explain why the credible experts are not credible.

As for me, I saw my GP and I have stopped taking statins. I have excellent blood pressure, no history of family heart disease, I exercise, have a healthy diet and low stress, excellent blood test results except for moderatly high cholesterol and slight but slowly worsening liver function - and guess what casues that! Instead of spending a few hundren dollars a year on them, I'll get an annual cardiac stress test (ie wired up on a treadmill) - a much more reliable test of my heart and no side effects. II;ll be interested in what the cardiologist I see in 3 weeks says too.

John :

06 Nov 2013 5:09:50pm

Of note the program was largely picked up on by 'paleo diet' advocates. (A rebranded Atkins-style diet that promotes high fat, high protein diets under a call to nature mantra that has gained momentum as the preferred diet for Crossfit participants).

When it aired they all went on Facebook and said 'see told you so!!!! Fat and cholesterol GOOD!!! Do not listen to all those puppet doctors, go and listen to ABC!!!'

Such groups really didn't need more wind in their sails. The good thing about ABC is that they will air the show and then allow Dr Norman to write a piece related to it. If the majority of people payed attention to both and made informed decisions then this would lead to all of us being better informed.

Instead it is usually the case that most people rely on one source. For eternity we will now hear individuals (and groups promoting fad diets) keeping the myth alive by saying 'oh but remember the ABC program where they proved that statins are useless and cholesterol/fat are actually really good for you?' Before people with balanced views have finished debunking the myth, many will have already tuned out... this is why it is dangerous to air one-sided stories that claim to turn common beliefs on their head.

JL Adelaide :

08 Nov 2013 10:46:19am

Gary, it was one sided in that it's aim was to challenge the existing dogma. Good on them for having the guts, because at least now we are having discussions about the data, the benefits and the community cost of drug treatment.If you think it's too biased then I assume you regard the British Medical journal as a valid reputatable source?Then read this:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2144195It's pretty much in line with the arguement being made in this program.

Len Hay :

06 Nov 2013 5:42:45pm

I welcome the expanding debate about the widespread use of powerful and profitable drugs where no benefit can be demonstrated nor proven. The medical prfession needs to face the fact that many people are no longer prepared to accept medical advice blindly that in many cases and mine in particular did nothing except made me feel awful.I was prescribed statins a few years ago and my doctor was not prepared to even discuss their effects and ignored my attempts to question their use (how dare I and who was I to question a doctor). I stopped taking them and feel years younger and healthier. This old fashioned supremacy attitude is reflective of much of the profession who want to push a vested interest view on how to maintain health. Food quality and diet is a huge factor in human health and yet many doctors are not only blind to it but receive very little training in it or its importance. Come on doctors, get further educated; much of your medical knowledge is now outdated and has been shown to be ineffective. Start listening to what is actually happening out there in health promotion or see your profession further lose its market share.

Mum :

Mary Enig doesn't get a mention in the debate about cholesterol and heart disease, fats and heart disease?

Watch; The oiling of America - check it out on youtube.

We were watching a commercial station yesterday when they were discussing health snacks and unhealthy snack for children.

Guess what the 'nutritionist' gave the 'bad' award to? A healthy organic fruit and nut bar because it contained butter. (GASP).

the world has gone mad.We all eat butter, I see feeding margarine to children as bad a leaving them in a car in the sun. my cholesterol is 6, I care not, I'm as healthy as anything and look ten years younger than my peers. None of us are overweight. My mother eats butter, she looks twenty years younger than her 80. Not a thing wrong with her. No meds.

She went to the doctor a while ago and they took her blood pressure and it was slightly up (it does go up and down you know, just like cholesterol, during the day). The doctor said (after ONE BP measure), medication for you. She said, what else can bring it down? The doc said 'exercise.' Mum normally walks about an hour a day but had been 'off' schedule with the flu. Back on her schedule, BP down. She continues to eat butter and continues to radiate health. She doesn't eat processed foods, no cream cakes and cereals, no smoking, no boozing, no softdrinks to leech calcium from her bones. She grows her own veggies. Bones of steel. I'm doing what she's done.

Dad on the other hand, who was in excellent physical health, was put on statins two years ago because his cholesterol was slightly up, has become frail and weak with shaking hands and loss of arm muscles....at 83, does he need to bother? With no other risk factors for heart disease should he be on them?

Joe :

07 Nov 2013 3:28:51pm

Mum,

When the costs are measured to our society of obtaining a benefit by focusing our food and nutritional requirements, over the last 40 years or so, to extend our lives by a few years at the end of our lives will wonder why it was done. For the costs to our young is very high and it is a cost that must be born for their entire lives. The effects of even moderate levels of consumption of processed food and transfats stay with Children for their entire lives.

HP :

07 Nov 2013 12:47:03pm

First of all, congratulations to the ABC and Catalyst for having the courage to bring a well researched and presented program on this important issue to air where previously there existed only a vacuum.I have taken statins for 15yrs and have always had serious concerns about the absence of any credible scientific evidence to support their use, particularly with people like myself with no other 'risk factors' other than a total cholesterol rating of 7.Like many others I have suffered from a range of increasingly severe side-effects that reduce quality of life.The Catalyst program was the final prompt I needed to cease this medication. My physiology mirrors that of my grandmother and mother. Both had high cholesterol readings and one died at 99yrs and the other is still going strong at 99yrs. Both my paternal predecessors had normal cholesterol and died in their late 70s - heart attack & stroke.There is just no convincing evidence to keep me taking a medication with so many serious and debilitating side-effects.

Simon :

Of the readers that is, who felt compelled to comment on this very interesting debate, actually refer to the singular most significant statement made in the first program.

Sugar is the killer! Cholesterol is actually doing its best to keep us alive - although for many of us it's rather overdoing it and blocking up the artery it is attempting to repair.

NHS Patients in the UK are able to get OPA3 gene testing. Many of us have genealogy that for one reason or another make us less able to combat the OVER production of Cholesterol.

Whilst it'll be many decades before any curative pills, potions or artery coursing nanobots will be available at the chemist - there is very clear instruction given to those found to have less able genes after testing.

John :

08 Nov 2013 9:00:07am

Cut out the sugar and carbs!The Heart Foundation may not agree, but if only I had known this 40 years ago. Instead of listening to doctors about cholesterol and fats and trying to cope with the side effects of various cholesterol lowering medications which had minimal effect on cholesterol anyway. I supposedly have Familial Hypercholestrolemia to explain my extreme cholesterol levels. After many years of low fat, hiigh carb diet, I developed type 2 diabetes which I control by diet. High blood glucose is caused by carbs and sugars. My triglyceride level has dropped dramatically, my HDL level has improved, although LDL is still elevated, my liver function is normal for the first time in over 30 years. This is far better than could be achived with statins or other medications. The only side effect of a low carb, low sugar diet is BETTER HEALTH. If only we could get the right information!

Ella :

Aussie Sutra :

08 Nov 2013 12:31:14pm

The main concern I had with the second part of the Catalyst programme is that it failed to reinforce the key message..low cholesterol is not a measure of health. The only cholesterol we need be concerned about is vldl, and that is currently not routinely measured as a separate item Saturated fats from natural sources are good for us. We get healthier the more we eat of them as long as we simultaneously reduce our intake of sugars and processed starches. Statins should be prescibable only to the amall cohort who actually might benefit from them...males who have already had a heart attack....and even then, they are probably far better managed through diet.

Unfortunately the medical profession is trained to prescribe drugs as a first response, and has been working off falsified research in trying to reduce the cholesterol levels in patients. It's difficult to estimate just how many innocent patients have been murdered by this appalling system.

Peter McMurray :

10 Nov 2013 3:53:34pm

The Catalyst report was excellent and long overdue. It is most unfortunate that Doctor Swann grossly downplayes the massive side effects of statins as do many of the specialists prescribing them. Nobody wants to lose the magic bullet or for that matter the funding. It would be beneficial for the National Heart Foundation to state the amount of funding from Pfizer for example. My personal experience was terrible and I only discovered the cause a year or two down the track. Muscle wastage, dramatic memory loss severly affe ting my work, foul temper etc etc. Luckily my doctor, not the prescriber, sent me for a creatine kinase test. This showed massive muscle damage which took months to recover with the simple dumping of statins in the bin where they belong. Everything back to normal now but a dreadful journey for myself and my partner.

Vinnie :

11 Sep 2014 8:24:36pm

I was a perfectly healthy 46 yr old builder when I was told I needed to have a general health check to get a new life insurance policy. I didnt normally go to Docs as I didn't get sick. So upshot of that visit is 4 yrs ago my doctor put me on Lipidil and Crestor because he said I had high cholesterol. Over the next few years I had multiple ailments affect me, memory loss, kidneys began failing and kidney pain, in 3 yrs function test went from 80 to 45, Loss of Libido, weight gain, loss of physical strength. I questioned the Doc several times about me suddenly turning into an old man, he kept saying it was important to take the drugs to keep my cholesterol down. In desperation I stopped taking the drugs the night I watched that Catalyst programme. Less then a year later I have my life back as it was before, all ailments are gone, my regained health and vitality was almost miraculous over 6 months or so. In hindsight I feel like I've gotten out of a medical roundabout of health decline and the associated debt I was never meant to leave.

Gillian :

27 Oct 2014 9:30:40pm

It would be helpful if Doctors adopted a common approach to people like myself who have high bad and high good cholesterol.

I have inherited the above problem from my mother, along with atrial fibrillation. As I lived 400+ kms from Perth, doctors came and went - some staying for weeks, others for months. Some said I didn't need to be on statins as the good cholesterol was also high, others said I needed to be on statins. I now have loss of feeling in my toes, feel fatigued and just want to lie down and sleep - all since I started using statins.

I have decided to stop using statins, as it is no use living longer, if life is so difficult.

Andrew Stevens :

28 Jan 2016 4:21:19pm

Great program it is time we all questioned what is being prescribed by well meaning overworked physicians (who along with government)are being indoctrinated by so called evidence based research publications from drug companies to support their drugs.

From what I have been able to deduce (as a mere lay person) there are many factors involved and the one drug fixes all that is being very effectively peddled by the drug manufactures only happens in fairy tales.

I wonder if doctors would prescribe Statins if they took the drug themselves and felt the side effects, interesting.